Thursday, August 1, 2013

Inktastic: J herbin inks!

For many years I never really cared about inks, so I just used the same blue Pelikan 4001 ink again and again. But now that I have my own blog, I have the urge to buy truckloads of inks, I just want every ink that exists, NOW!!! So I started looking around for some inks that get a lot of good comments, and the first victims are three bottles of J Herbin inks: Perle Noire, lie de thé and Diabolo Menthe. (The reason for those being the first is because they are readilly available from an art store nearby.)

And I just love it! It feels like I never really was a fountain pen lover until now! It's so much fun to write with something else, and to be able to switch colours more often.

I really like the J. Herbin inks, they are available in a wide variety of colours, the bottles are very cool, and they are reasonably priced!

Another cool feature about the bottle; they are shaped like a pen rest, so they can hold your pen, which is actually pretty useful!

Perle Noire: My previous go-to black ink was Visconti black. But the Perle Noire seems to be a more saturated black, it is very smooth, the inkflow is good, and it doesn't feather! It has become my new go-to black ink!

Diabolo Menthe: I really like the turquoise colour, it's very bright! But it seems a bit bland in comparison to the other two, it doesn't really have much shading to it, and it is very light, sometimes it is even a little hard to read. I don't regret buying it though, it is very nice for calligraphy. With a wet calligraphy pen, it has a bit more variation in darkness!

Lie de Thé: This is my favourite of the three inks I bought! I love the ochre/ brown colour, it is vivid, but at the same time very neutral. It has some very nice shading, the colour varies from a light amber to a dark brown. The inkflow is outstanding! But it is a little harder to clean the pen, and it does tend to bleed a bit easier on cheaper paper. But overall it still performs very well, and I just love the colour! It is also a really nice calligraphy ink!

I paid about 6,50 Euros/ 9 USDollars per bottle (30ml) , but I think they can be found even cheaper!